THE LAST MAN: Part Twenty-two

There is an odd hue to the light in the atrium. Dull orange sunlight tinges the artificial white lights suspended above the lush rooftop garden. That orange light throws intersecting shadows among the lattice. The air is heavy and humid, and smelled of moss, wet earth and the musk of rotting vegetation. It is much different from the smell of the Low City. There is a harmony and peacefulness to the scents here, and they settle me. I am told, by the Man from the Corporation, that the garden is one place Sentinel has little interest in.

The garden is hopelessly overgrown and neglected. It grows wild, encroaching upon meandering pathways of crushed white stone. Trees crush to the ceiling, bending and spreading outwards to combine with the others in a thick green canopy. Some grow burdened with tangled vines that hang in tattered sheets of broad green leaves.

I find the garden well beyond my meager capacity for description. I have never known such things as trees, or flowers or grass. Certainly nothing more than moss or the occasional vine shrouding city walls. I am stunned by the variety, by virile colors and leaves of all manner of shape and texture. They are all so different, and yet there is a harmony and purpose to each. Vines embrace rather than strangle. There is competition, but no antagonism, despite that they are considered lowly forms of life.

I walk casually along the path with the Man from the Corporation. He takes my arm, as if we have been dear friends forever. There is a peaceful, almost contrite expression on his face. It is the first chance I have had to truly study him. He is old and frail. Much older than anyone I have ever seen, older even than the judges. It seems he should have gone to Reclamation long ago. His jaw is sharp and angular, culminating in small whimsical lips. His hair is bone-white, making his pristine blue eyes all the more stunning. There is a hesitation to his smile, as though he is about to say something wise, or is just as surprised by the thought as anyone. He smiles broadly as I pause to breath in the scent of the garden.

“You’re not like the others; Associates or the judges.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, with a note of condescension. I’m struggling to put my finger on it exactly.

“I don’t know. Almost like a separate breed.”

He smiles and looks around at the garden. Lovely, colorful little birds dart overhead.

“A separate breed, eh?”

“You’re much older, for one.”

He is a quiet a moment, his eyes searching mine for some indication that what he is about to reveal will not betray everything. I can see that the question weighs as heavily as the answer.
“Do you have any idea why the Corporation exists at all? No, of course you don’t. This planet is used up; finished. All that is left is to leave this place and discover our fate among the Universe. It’s not reasonable to assume all mankind will be spared. So it was decided to search for the strongest genetic lines, a hand full that would perpetuate the species for eternity. All these people, the Associates, judges, Section Twenty-one, all of them are amalgamations of those strongest lines.”

“But those lines also produced me, and Desiree, and all those in the Low City.”

“Of course,” he concedes.

“I might guess that it was less of a search than an assumption that a powerful few would continue?” My accusation is softened by a smile. He does not answer right off. He must know that I already know the answer.

“You might.”

At a tree I pause to touch the course bark. “All this diversity, and I am such a threat to you.”
He doesn’t reply. Instead the Man from the Corporation touches the tree as well.

“Very different from the pictures, eh?”

“The smell,” I remark. “It fills me.”

“You are one of the last to see this place.”

“I don’t understand?” I say, perplexed.

“Did you believe that this, that any of this could last forever?”

“But this.” I brush my fingers through the long prickly needles of a small fir, awakening its peppery perfume.

“There were others who cared, but I am all that is left. When I am gone… You must realize that this is superfluous, a guilty pleasure without purpose, the archaeology of hope. Much as yourself.”

“Pardon?” I ask. There is something in his voice that is dark and funeral. He kneels beside me and runs his fingers through the gently white halos of dandelions that have gone to seed. They tumble away in the wake of his hand. He touches leaves and stems and soil as though memorizing them, and breathes their scent from his fingertips. He looks at me.

“Hope is a stained sheet. It’s an irrational relic, like melancholy or remorse, or longing over a dead history. There is no purpose to hope, but the delusion from reality.” He stands and faces me directly. “You are a stain on this society, and when your trial is over you will be discarded just as surely.”

I hear the words of old John Brown, spoken from his deathbed. You may dispose of me easily-I am nearly disposed of now, but this question is yet to be settled. I would scream those words at him and kill him with them. His words suck the air from my lungs. Blood rushes like a fever in my face.

“This was all concocted for your entertainment?”

“You received no pleasure from it?” he smiles with sincerity. “Perhaps a triumphal glow now and then? Indeed, man, there were moments of absolute brilliance! ‘Men must tolerate men by right of agreement!’ It was all I could do to keep from shouting with joy.”

“Wasted effort?”

“You had a voice, if only fleeting. That’s much more than the vast majority will ever enjoy. You have that. What more do you want?”

“I want life,” I say, sweating bullets, as though I’ve made some irrational request. He breathes deeply and sits on a small bench, sweeping away the small dead leaves so I may sit. Vines cover the rusting iron legs. A cottony white spider’s wed fills the space between the legs. I hesitate to join him. It feels like a concession to the Corporation when I final sit. I don’t look at him.

“Have you ever really tried to comprehend forever?” he says.
I don't answer right off. ‘We are caught in an extraordinary paradox,’ Mandela said once, ‘finite creatures made from the infinite.’ I only smile.

The man from the Corporation frowns. “Of course you haven’t. They don’t teach common Associates such abstract things. It is only necessary that you work, reproduce and care reasonably for yourself.”

“Forever,” I repeat to myself. He takes no notice.

“You and I will never know eternity. We’ll never know a measurable fraction of it. My life is nearly past, and yours…the Corporation will not allow you to exist. We have this moment, my friend, and all that we can make of it.”